


Regarding First Impressions, or, The Usefulness of Masks

by printfogey



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Gen, Water 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1200658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/printfogey/pseuds/printfogey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortfic from Usopp's POV regarding his first two meetings with Franky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regarding First Impressions, or, The Usefulness of Masks

**Author's Note:**

> An old fic, one of my first in this fandom. Spoilers up to and including chapter 360.
> 
> Genre: Angst, sort of (the tone is intended to be calm, but it’s hard to get away from the general angst of the situation).
> 
> Feedback as always very welcome, included constructive criticism. (This one is a bit too old for me to substantially rewrite, but nitpicks can still be useful, and it's good to know what readers think in any case.
> 
> Disclaimer: The characters and situations of One Piece are owned by their creator Eiichiro Oda. They are used here without permission for entertainment purposes only. This story is under no circumstances to be used for profit and should not be reposted elsewhere without the writer's approval.

When Usopp had first met Franky, the latter had been wearing a mask.

That Franky, the huge unknown gangleader who’d refused to give back the money his goons had stolen, who’d punched him and tossed him off to get beaten to a pulp by same goons, who’d laughed with scorn and said ’I feel sorry for the Strawhat for letting such a weak person guard his money’ – that Franky had been covered completely by a big carnival costume in the Water 7 style. Usopp vaguely remembered a huge orange ruffle and a star-shaped head at the top with a stern face in orange, yellow, and white, inexpressive and towering and implacable.

Then they’d met again the next day when Franky had decided to capture him as bait and bring the Going Merry along to his private hideout, now that his house had been torn down by the others. That Franky, Franky the man – who cried easily and copiously with sympathy; whose every gesture was copied by the Square Sisters; who seemed genuinely if intermittently remorseful; who kept picking out little tunes on his guitar, argued with him about the state of the Going Merry and told him about the Klabautermann and of the value of ships that are truly loved by their crew; who changed from one mood to another with ridiculous speed and was loud and brash and annoying and not quite possible to hate – that Franky had not been wearing any mask. (Or much of anything, for that matter).

It was hard to say whether that made any difference.

When you thought about it, a crime boss and his thugs taking advantage of a weak link in order to rob the lawless of their presumably ill-begotten spoils seemed so obviously likely that it was almost more than a natural force than actual individuals. Something like that was just bound to happen one day. To be that weak link mattered a lot – a huge lot. But as for the ones who’d happened to do it and had set things into motion, they didn’t matter that much. They were just outsiders, after all. Besides, honestly, why bother?

And whatever cutting words such an outsider crime boss might throw around, those paled into insignificance when compared to what really mattered. Such as Luffy’s incomprehensible blitheness with regards to Going Merry’s condition, his sudden, uncharacteristic clinging to a captain’s authority while refusing to change his mind and also refusing to stop Usopp from leaving; and even more his own inexcusable weakness and carelessness and mistrust and overreaction and willingness to hurl at Luffy the very words he knew would hurt him the most – not to mention fight a serious duel as well – and maybe most of all his inability to stop himself before it was too late.

After all that, why bother with hating Franky? Especially since he’d just saved Merry (or at least tried to do so) from the threatening waves of the Aqua Laguna. So he’d meant it when he told Franky on that second meeting that he didn’t hate anybody. (Expect perhaps himself and he wasn’t really sure about that either. But he really couldn’t hate Luffy for more than those first few hours. It just hurt way too much.). There was simply no use in going on like that.

And besides, Franky had been wearing a mask.


End file.
